Defining Roles

(This is a reprint.  This post was originally published on July 30, 2008.  I’ll be touching on the subject again — and on how it’s changed thanks to the new books that have come out since I first wrote this — in the near future.)

Over at All Your Dungeons Are Belonging to Us!!, Donny raises an interesting point regarding the difference between third and fourth edition D&D.  In a nutshell, he feels that character roles, for the sake of game balance, are enforced more strictly in 4e than they were in 3e, and his opinion is that this is a bad thing.  It’s the following passage that inspired this post, though:

I do not like being TOLD how my character SHOULD be played. It’s just like that. The great peoples (no sarcasm) over at Wizards have taken this edition WAY too far down the path of one-size-fits-all. The “tyranny of fun” argument was misplaced with the stupid cave slime example, THIS is where it lives. It is right at the heart of the system, not in some silly little table, buried in the middle of a book. Want to play a ranger? Good, you’re the striker. Just. Like. That. Even worse, where’s the customization? Everything that has been set aside for you in terms of powers are designed specifically to reinforce that role. Even within it’s own framework this has problems. You cannot fill any other role.

This is not entirely true, in my limited experience with 4e.  But it is largely true, especially of the ranger.  Most classes can, with some work, fulfill a secondary role — the fighter can put out damage almost as well as a striker, the paladin has some healing and buffing abilities like a leader, the warlock and the cleric bring some control to the table, and even the rogue can do a lot of sliding and pushing and knocking the enemy prone if he builds for it.  The ranger, though, is largely damage.  Future books might change that, as Donny notes later, but the core ranger is a striker.

Is this a problem?

Well, clearly, for some people it is.  But that’s not the question I’m really interested in.  No, that question is:

How is this different from 3e?

In third edition, it was possible to fit just about any character class into just about any role, at least in theory.  Multiclassing seemed to be expected — you’d take a level of this or that in order to gain the capabilities you saw your character having.  Those capabilities were defined by themes, and each class had a specific theme.  The ranger was the wilderness warrior.  (Okay, the barbarian was too, sort of, and the druid could be, but they had different themes to suit that concept.)  In other words, you had a role in mind, then you chose capabilities that suited that role, and the class was almost incidental.

(That’s how it works in theory, anyway.  In practice, unless you knew you were playing a short game limited to low-to-mid level, you made a cleric, a wizard, or a druid, because eventually a member of any of those classes could do anything, and a fighter, for instance, was quickly obsolete.  But that’s another rant.)

Fourth edition doesn’t work that way.  The class is no longer just an easy-reference name to use as an umbrella for the group of abilities it contains.  The class is now your profession.  It is what you do.

Here’s the trick, though:  the name of the class is still largely irrelevant.

Some people become annoyed with the 4e system because they see a lack of options.  Where, for instance, is the archery-focused fighter?

Well, it’s right there in the PHB.  They call it the “Ranger” now.  That’s also where the two-weapon fighter is.

But your fighter isn’t a sneak-around-in-the-woods type?

Well, Ranger no longer implies that.  (Actually, the flavor text kind of does — more on that in a minute — but the system itself doesn’t.)  You certainly can build one that way, but you don’t have to.  If you look at the capability you want to have, the job you want to perform, then the Ranger class is the right choice.

The Fighter isn’t just the “guy who fights” now.  He’s the guy who’s in the middle of the fight, taking the brunt of the attack, and he can dish it out in melee, too.  With either one-handed weapon (and shield) or two-handed weapon.

You can’t take the brunt of the attack for your allies if you’re 20 squares away firing a bow.  If that’s what you want to do, then you don’t want to play the Fighter, because the Fighter isn’t that guy.  The Fighter’s class features don’t make sense for that guy.  You want to play the Ranger, because the Ranger is that guy.  And the Ranger can be a fighter, even though he’s not a Fighter — that’s just a matter of your background and roleplay.

Is this a problem?

Well, it’s definitely a change.  It’s not necessarily easy to wrap your thoughts around, partly because it’s not stated explicitly in the book — they say “the Ranger is a striker,” but not “Ranger is the class designation for a character who is an archer or who fights with two weapons.”  In fact, the Ranger flavor text, while it does mention “masters of bow and blade,” is largely tied up in the wilderness-oriented warrior concept.  But that concept is 3e thinking.

There’s no indication that Ranger is the right choice for, say, a swashbuckler armed with rapier and main-gauche.  Even a barbarian swinging two battleaxes is a stretch.  But the Ranger is in fact focused on dual-wielding and on in-combat mobility.

You want your swashbuckler to be a Rogue?  You can build him that way, too — the Rogue is the “single light weapons” guy, and he’s got lots of mobility too.  You can even multiclass Ranger/Rogue or Rogue/Ranger in order to pick up a couple of tricks.  Maybe if you’re a Rogue, you want some Ranger two-weapon attacks, so that that dagger in your offhand means more than just a +1 damage.  Multiclassing has some problems, but it can be made to work.

You want your swashbuckler to be a Fighter?  Well, when I think of a swashbuckler, I think of a mobile guy armed with a light weapon or two, and that doesn’t really fit the Fighter.  “He fights” isn’t a reason to slot him into the Fighter category, because that’s not what the Fighter does any more.  In third edition, it was — the fighter was the guy who got lots of bonus feats, which could be used to pick up a swashbuckler-y fighting style.  But that’s no longer the case.

But if your concept is a swashbuckler who charges into the fight and takes the hits so that the squishies don’t have to, then a Fighter might suit you.

Basically, I think there’s some dissonance because people have certain expectations of each class, not just in terms of mechanics, but in terms of flavor.  Those expectations are no longer true.  But — and this is a negative in 4e’s presentation — the PHB often pays lip service to those expectations.  As it does with all the wilderness talk in the Ranger’s flavor text.

The trick is to remember that the Ranger class is not the same thing as a ranger character.  A ranger might be a Ranger (and probably is), and a Ranger might be a ranger.  But a Ranger might also be a swashbuckler or a barbarian.  Any of them is a striker, yes.  But if your character concept isn’t meant to be a striker, then Ranger isn’t the right class for it.

(The right class might not exist, though.  If you wanted an actual dual-wielding leader, or an archery-based controller, you’re out of luck.  At least for now.)

This is a limitation of the system, true.  And it’s also a mildly confusing paradigm shift from 3e.  But it’s not one I see as a major issue.  D&D, like any class-based system, always has excluded some concepts based upon class.  I don’t think 4e does so more than previous editions, except perhaps insofar as there are fewer discrete classes to choose from.  (3.5e had a ton of them, thanks to the endless proliferation of prestige classes.)

The distinction:  the system’s not telling you how your character should be played.  It’s telling you what role your class was designed to play.  This isn’t the same way in which they handled class-based restrictions in 3e, but that doesn’t mean 3e was without its restrictions.  Nor does it mean that you can’t play your class in another way.  If you really want your Fighter to wield a bow, he can.  It won’t be half as effective as a Ranger doing it, no.  But my rogue in 3e couldn’t cast invisibility, either, because he wasn’t a wizard.  Could he fake it with a wand?  Yes, but it wasn’t half as effective as a wizard doing it…

One thing 4e isn’t quite as good with is odd party combinations, though.  Four wizards in 3e was an unstoppable force.  Four wizards in 4e are probably lunch.  You can work around lack of a role, to some extent or other — but without a defender, for instance, things get dicey.  Monster encounters get deadlier for the other party members without that “tank” there.

Personally, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make in exchange for the fighter player feeling just as useful and important to the group as the cleric or wizard in every battle.  But it’s not one that everyone will feel comfortable making.

Related posts:

1. Developing Roles
2. Defining the Raven Queen
3. Class Design for 4th Edition
4. Hanging in the Balance
5. The Rules Gap